GOYANG — Goyang, the only city of one million people in northern Gyeonggi Province, is accelerating its shift into a self-sufficient city by expanding wide-area transportation networks and nurturing strategic industries. With industrial expansion long constrained by capital-region regulations, the city plans to improve transportation access while developing precision medicine, aerospace and cultural content as future growth engines to secure both jobs and tax revenue. Mayor Min Kyung-sun, who led the turnaround of the Gyeonggi Transportation Corporation from a state of capital erosion to profit, has laid out a blueprint for transforming Goyang from a bedroom community into a "smart transportation self-sufficient city," drawing on his experience in transportation and public administration.
In an interview with Seoul Economic Daily on the 22nd, Min said the best transportation policy is to build a city where people do not need to travel far. "We will move beyond being a city convenient for commuting to Seoul and become a city that talent from other regions comes to work in," he said.
At the core of Min's vision for a self-sufficient city is a virtuous cycle between transportation and industry. The plan is to expand wide-area transportation networks, including the Great Train Express (GTX)-A, to cut travel times, while increasing local jobs through corporate investment and strategic industries. Major rail issues such as the Siksa-Pungdong line, the extension of the West Sea Line and extensions of subway Lines 3 and 9 are also listed as tasks to resolve.
"With rail projects, persuading the agencies that decide on preliminary feasibility studies and budget allocations matters as much as being included in the plans," he said. "We will consult not only with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and Gyeonggi Province but also with agencies that hold real decision-making power, such as the Ministry of Planning and Budget, to demonstrate Goyang's rail demand and future growth potential."
The city also plans to go beyond expanding transportation infrastructure and grow future mobility into a local industry. It will foster urban air mobility (UAM), drones and autonomous driving, and use an aerospace industry-academia convergence center to be built in the Baekseok office building as an industrial hub. The plan is to connect the research and education capabilities of Korea Aerospace University with companies to build an ecosystem spanning research and development, talent training and commercialization.
The city aims to use the UAM vertiport built at KINTEX to create a testing base for future transportation technology and to emerge as an industrial hub bringing together the government, universities and companies. Amid these moves, inquiries from aerospace companies about moving in have been steadily coming in.
The city will also build a precision medicine industry base covering precision medicine, drug development and startup support by linking cancer data from the National Cancer Center, health care data from the National Health Insurance Service Ilsan Hospital and the research capabilities of Dongguk University's Bio Medi Campus.
In particular, the city is making an all-out effort to win final designation as a free economic zone by combining its local medical infrastructure, where seven large hospitals and research institutions are clustered, with a cultural content base including KINTEX and performance and exhibition facilities to secure competitiveness that sets it apart from cities outside the capital region.
"Goyang has a cluster of large hospitals and research institutions, as well as a base in KINTEX and the cultural content industry," Min said. "We will put forward precision medicine and K-culture as our distinct competitive strengths and lead the city to a free economic zone designation."
The cultural content industry will also be nurtured as a future growth engine. The plan is to use performance and exhibition infrastructure to create tourism demand and build an industrial ecosystem that draws related companies and talent, amplifying the ripple effects on the local economy.
Through the "Open Goyang Project," which he approved as the first act of his term in the ninth popularly elected local government, Min is also changing how the city is run, strengthening communication with residents and translating complaints and suggestions raised on the ground into policy and institutional improvements.
As the change he most wants to achieve during his term, he pointed to an expansion of jobs that residents can feel. The judgment is that better transportation alone cannot complete a self-sufficient city.
"It is only a true self-sufficient city when young people can find jobs in Goyang using what they studied and build careers in the region," Min said. "We will not stop at making transportation convenient. We will build a Goyang where jobs, industry and residents' lives change together."
